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Tall Emu is offering $39.95 off all its products for a three day period running from 12.01 AM Monday August 10 to 11.59 PM Wednesday August 12, 2009. (All times are US Pacific Standard Time)

The $39.95 is not a cash back offer or refund: it is an immediate discount you can apply to any Tall Emu product and comes with full support.

So for example you could use the discount to get:

* The superb $39.95 Online Armor Premium firewall for free or * A $49.95 two year license to Online Armor Premium firewall for $10 or * The full $59.95 online Armor ++ Security Suite for $20 or * Any other Tall Emu product at a $39.95 discount

I tested this out and all went smoothly. I got my license key about ten seconds after I ordered.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've been a member here at donationcoder for a few years, and I also write a bit for Gizmo which keeps me pretty busy.For anyone who may not know, Gizmo's site a evaluates freeware and makes recommendations on the top picks. All the categories are maintained by volunteer editors. There are no ads at all. Everything is done by people donating time and talent. Ok, now you now you aren't being lured in by an evil empire marketing scheme, if you're interested, wander on over.

I'm no security expert, but I've been running the free version of Online Armor for some time. For what its worth, its highly rated at matousec.

Eudora will sort by name, and within names it sorts by date, so you have an alphabetical list of email that is sorted by name and date.(I hope that made sense)

not only makes sense, I've wished for it on many occasions

EDIT:-TBird does actually sort by chosen column AND by date but you cant choose the second column by which you would like to sort

I didn't know that about TBird, thanks for telling me. Postbox may do something, they have a lot of people asking for that feature. So far they've been responsive to requests for features, recently adding a vertical view for email. I haven't tried the Mozilla version of Eudora yet so I don't know if it will sort the way Eudora does. They've been working on keeping Eudora's features on top of a TBird engine.

Eudora sorts email using consecutive criteria.For example, if I click on the Who (who the email is from) heading, Eudora will sort the mail alphabetically but it will also sort by another criteria if I want, such as Replied To or New Mail.What shows up is all the email that's been replied to will be sorted alphabetically and grouped together at the top. Then read email will be alphabetically sorted and grouped under the email that's been replied to. Any New Email is sorted alphabetically and grouped at the bottom of the list. In other words, it groups all the emails together by criteria, consecutively, instead of being able to sort by one criteria only.Most email programs will alphabetize email by name only. Then if you click on Date, it re-sorts them by Date.Eudora will sort by name, and within names it sorts by date, so you have an alphabetical list of email that is sorted by name and date.(I hope that made sense)Other programs will sort by name, then if you sort by date, it sorts only by date. It sorts one or the other, but won't sort by date and then by name so email is sorted by both criteria.I hope that makes sense.

I will try that app but I think I am TheBat! addicted already Also an interface might be "too Mac" for me (judging from screenshots).

You can set it to quote above reply, below reply, or select the quote.Tools/Account Settings/Composition and Addressing.You can uncheck the HTML box there as well and it should revert to text messages.

I don't like the mail sorting options. I'm still looking for an email client that sorts mail like Eudora - the original, not the one Mozilla's working on.

I've been using the beta versions as they are released, the one before the most recent (when they went public) hung up one day when I clicked on it in the taskbar.When I restarted it, all my email was gone.

Pro's: it imported all my settings from Eudora but it changed the ports of my Gmail account.It indexes messages in a heartbeat. I like that combined with the search capabilities.I like the ability to archive messages combined with the indexing, it make searching much easier.I know Thunderbird has an archive feature, as does gmail - but neither have the indexing capabilities.I love the To-Do feature.

Con's: still in beta so a bit buggy, and it doesn't sort like Eudora. = )

I've been looking into this for a week or two and trying out a few of them..........I've been using Jungle Disk with Amazon S3 for some time, and it works fine for me, but for some reason I'm driven to play around with the others. (that along with an external hard drive have me feeling reasonable safe)There are other interfaces available for S3, but I'm not aware of any others that do automatic backup.FWIW, Jungle Disk was purchased by Rackspace, and though its not clear as yet what they plan to do, it looks like they are thinking of offering storage in both places.

I've also been using Windows Sky Drive:Windows Sky DriveIt has 5 GB free storage.I have a few things stored on there and the interface is easy, but if you want drag and drop you need to use IE.

After poking around, the biggest difference I noticed was that some offer file synchronization across one or more computers, some offer storage only and files are backed up manually, and some offer storage and back up, or storage, backup, and synchronization.

Most of them are accessible from anywhere, though some of the free ones limit you to one computer. Some of them will only allow certain types of files to be uploaded.

Dropbox has 2GB and is very easy to use:DropboxI have a handful of invitations if anyone wants one.Dropbox stores their files at Amazon S3.

Syncplicity just came out of beta - I've been using it off and on. It hogs a lot of bandwidth.Sugarsync has plans starting at $2.49/mo. US and will put your photos into gorgeous photo albums (so they say).

Most of the services allow files to be shared or kept private.

I'm leery of Wuala as they seem to store bits and pieces data on the computers of the people who join.Maybe its secure but the very idea of my data being scattered about on other people's computers gives me the chills.

I'm a digital packrat. I collect information about all sorts of things, I don't seem to be capable of focusing on one area. Probably because I'm interested in more things than I could learn about in several lifetimes.

Along the lines of Tinjaw, I collect information managers. Something to manage all the bits of stuff on my hard drive. I've been using Scrapbook, and I like it, but now Evernote has come along as an online option and I'm back to waffling again. All the others are successfully collecting digital dust in folders on my hard drive.

And books, oh I love books. I don't think I have too many at the moment, but that would be because I discovered that Powell's bookstore will buy your books. You get store credit for them, which is ok with me.

I donate books to my local library for the collection or the book sale. The town and the library aren't all that large, so I make sure to contribute.

As for the rest...........its an ongoing process of uncluttering and simplifying. Errrrrr, that doesn't apply to software.

Oh well. Enhanced Dialog is working pretty well otherwise. A few weird things but they may be caused by Windows XP Pro. I'm not sure. Like even though I have all dialogs set to show in Detailed mode, many still open in the List mode, and some in Thumbnails mode. Also, About every other time I open a dialog it shows the files in reverse alpha order. Arrgggh! Is that likely to be Enhanced Dialog? Or does WinXP do that? Like, all are in alpha-ascending order when downloading something. Then the next time I download they are listed in alpha-descending!

TweakUI has a section where you can customize the dialog boxes. You can add and remove anything you like. It always showed up the way I set it up, but I didn't make changes to the views.

There's an excellent overview of XP here that covers most of what TweakUI can do here:

Its ok, much like the one that comes with Object Desktop from Stardock. It has a few fatal flaws for me to use it - you can't move the bar around, your only choice of position is one of the four corners of your screen.The other is that it shows several blank, numbered desktops in addition to the ones you use.

thanks laughinglizardthats an interesting read, unfortunately no screenshots so I dont get any sense of how they organise thingsthere I go with the visuals again

I would have liked to see some screenshots there too, but with overviews of 30+ programs listed, I can see why there aren't.

I'm very visual as well, so I know what you mean. I do well with Swift-To_Do-List, but that's because its so easy to use.I'm told the mind mapping software is good for this sort of thing, but I haven't checked into it. I just can't tackle learning a new program right now, I'm working on getting all of my stored information in one place, so I'm messing with Ultra Recall.

There's also a program called Papel - it uses a visual interface. Using the program is like using a stack of digital index cards, which are called ‘papels’. It isn't supported by the author anymore but it might be worth a look.

Have you thought about a white board or a chalkboard? I like to draw and scribble on things and they are good for that. I think they have paint that will turn any wall into a chalkboard.........but that's no software solution.

Quickbooks is offering their Simple Start 2008 for Windows accounting software for free. It doesn't import data from other (previous versions)Quickbooks, Peachtree or Quicken, other than that, its the full featured version.

I think for this year we should concentrate on our own ideas and what works for each of us personally. Let's share our experiences and struggles and try to each perfect our own system.

I'm convinced that having some set of policies and guidelines -- a "routine" of sorts, is important for most of us to stay on track. So this year let's try to each of us focus on refining the techniques that work for us individually.

I'll post my "system" in a few days.. Meanwhile I'd like to hear what you guys do!

I don't have a structured system, probably couldn't stick to it if I did - what works for me is a framework for me to follow.Its pretty simple and quite flexible, and that makes it easier for me stick to.

-Do the worst, hardest, least attractive task first. This has lots of benefits - I feel like I've accomplished something and gets rid of that "hanging over my head oh I really, really don't want to do that" feeling. If I do this early enough in the day, I'm usually done before my brain engages enough to start squawking about it.

-Decide what is important and high priority and respond to that as soon as possible. Leave the rest for the time I've blocked out to take care of more usual things.

-Put things back. Such a simple idea, but I have a hard time implementing it. To get around this, I have a "ten minutes or less" rule. I look at my list of things to do, and decide which of them can be done in ten minutes or less. I either decide what to do from the list, or I put things away for ten minutes - amazing the amount of things that can get done in such a short time. Most of them take less than 10 minutes, usually closer to five minutes. I like to do this once or twice a day, just because I'm always amazed at how much can get done in such a short time. My brain appears to be loosely attached to time -there's this persistent idea that it takes forever to do anything, so I don't do it because I don't have enough time.

-Shred everything that needs to be shredded the minute it comes in the door or when I'm done with it. This helps prevent the paper piles from procreating so rapidly. The shredder is always plugged in and its in a place that's easy to get to.One of my friends has the shredder next to the front door so they shred things when they bring the mail in. It works for them.

-I don't answer the phone much if I'm busy. I set aside a time to return calls and call back then. This isn't hard because I do not like the phone. Really. Anyone gets a much faster response from me if they email me.

-No multi-tasking. I work better and faster if I do one thing at a time. Otherwise none of what I'm trying to multi-task gets done well. Usually things don't get done because it fell by the wayside why I was tasking it with something else. Being able to give my full attention to something or someone is a pleasure.

-Have fun. Take a break and do something I like to do. Go outside, read a favorite blog or website, anything I enjoy that fits into what's going on at the moment.

-Make lists. I love lists, and for longest time I could never make them work for me. I'd lose the paper I wrote them on. I couldn't remember what file they were in on my hard drive. Then I found the program Swift-To-Do-List, and for whatever reason it clicks with me. Its easy to use and I remember to look at it and add things to it.

I manage to get along pretty well using this framework. Its what works when so many other things haven't. I'll add something if I think it will work, and stop something if it isn't working.

(I came across this on the Wisebread.com blog and am passing it along)

This resource is called Google Talks and it contains over 170 fascinating lectures, given to the very lucky and privileged Google staff, most around 1 hour long. Google Talks is a a whole repository of in-depth, wonderful lectures from some of the finest minds in writing, news, acting, politics, science, cuisine, music and more.